The embodiments described herein relate to a semiconductor memory device, and more particularly, a nonvolatile memory device and a method of programming the same.
Semiconductor memory devices may be generally classified as volatile semiconductor memory devices or nonvolatile semiconductor memory devices. Volatile semiconductor memory devices perform read and write operations at high speed, but stored contents are lost at power-off. Nonvolatile semiconductor memory devices retain stored contents, even when power is off. Nonvolatile semiconductor memory devices may be used to store contents that must be retained, regardless of whether they are powered. Nonvolatile semiconductor memory devices include mask read-only memory (MROM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM), and electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), for example.
A representative nonvolatile semiconductor memory device may be a flash memory device. Flash memory devices are widely used as voice and image data storing media included in various information appliances, such as computers, cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), digital cameras, camcorders, voice recorders, MP3 players, handheld personal computer (PCs), game machines, facsimiles, scanners, printers, and the like.
In recent years, multi-bit memory devices storing multi-bit data in one memory cell have become increasingly common according to an increasing need for integrity. Further, in recent years, semiconductor memory devices having memory cells stacked in a three dimension have been researched for further improving the integrity of the semiconductor memory devices.